The NDFP-Mindanao condemns in strongest terms the spate of desperate and brutal psychological war (psywar) tactics employed by the US-Duterte regime to exploit, deceive and divide the masses, particularly the Lumad people, in the all-out desperate attempt to emasculate the New People’s Army (NPA) in particular, and the revolutionary movement in Mindanao, in general.

The US-Duterte regime, through the AFP/PNP/CAFGU/paramilitary forces, went to extremes to set-up brutal murders and pin it on the NPA in the vain attempt to malign the people’s army and induce the anger of the people, particularly that of the relatives of the victim, with the end in view of causing them to “rise up” against the revolutionary movement.

The AFP, for instance, recently conspired with their own thugs and paramilitary attack dogs in San Miguel, Surigao del Sur to perpetrate the grisly murder of Manobo CAA/CAFGU Mar Acebedo Bocales, who was reportedly beheaded and sustained multiple lacerations. The AFP was then quick to claim that the NPA was responsible for such an act, and quickly let loose their spin doctors to spread this fake and poison news in both mainstream and social media.

The NPA was in no way involved in such murderous act, and all evidence point to the fact that it was the AFP’s own bandit attack dogs, led by a certain Emerson Cuarteron, that executed the crime mainly because of a dispute over the control for ancestral domain.

There were two other incidents in the Caraga region that involved the brutal killing of Lumad tribal leaders perpetrated by CAA/CAFGU elements in Alegria, Surigao del Norte, with which the AFP exploited to blame, malign and slander the NPA. This is one of the blackest and vilest psywar attacks employed by the AFP that allows them, with impunity, to kill, maim and torture anyone of their choosing, especially those among the Lumad whom they treat merely as expendable pawns, to demolish the credibility of the NPA and the revolutionary movement.

The US-Duterte regime, in its utter desperation, has also paraded so-called “NPA surrenderees” in Davao Oriental, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, Caraga and other provinces in Mindanao in order to grimly paint the picture of “revolutionaries abandoning the movement.” This elaborate tele-serye-like script of “NPA members returning to the folds of the law because of exhaustion” however is nothing but a grand fake and poison news.

Why should the good sons and daughters of peasants and workers simply opt out when they know full well that what they are fighting for aspires to emancipate their kin and the people from the exploitation and oppression of the elite few? They will most assuredly choose to fight against an oppressive system that has made them and their families suffer for a long time than bow down and surrender to a fascist regime that perpetuates the same system.

Duterte, twice already, even treated these so-called “surrenderees” to dinner in Malacañang, and promised them monetary gifts, including lavish trips abroad. While Duterte and the AFP think that they have duped these “former rebels,” they are however utterly mistaken in thinking that real revolutionaries are easily persuaded to give up the struggle inveigled by these sugar-coated bullets. Those whom he treated to dinner, if in fact they had been part of the revolutionary movement before, have long rejected revolutionary principles. Majority of them are indubitably fake.

Flooding both mainstream and social media with the spectacle of “mass surrenders” is designed to make it appear that this has become a “trend,” but, this is just pure, unadulterated deception to dishearten the masses from their continued embrace of the national-democratic revolution. Despite Duterte’s and his AFP’s perfidious schemes however, the masses will never allow themselves to be deceived because they know full well that the victory of the revolution is the only real solution to their unbearable misery.

Duterte also went as brazen as to offer P25T for “every NPA member killed.” With this, he shamelessly uses local paramilitary forces, and practically anybody who can kill, as accomplices and accessories to his mass murder and murderous rage. By pushing civilians to kill for money, he virtually makes them his own “killers for hire.”

However, in truth, the only ones who are obsessively driven to kill the NPA are the elements of the AFP, PNP, the paramilitary and those who are considered dregs and traitors of their own tribal communities. This rampage results in the deaths of numerous civilians who fall as helpless victims to grisly killings by perpetrators who do it for the bounty. Despite this reckless offer by the ruffian in Malacanang, one cannot agonize over it exceedingly because no civilian in their right mind would ever dare kill the NPA for it is the real army of the people. However, it is only right for the masses and other civilians to be on the alert to avoid being the next victim later of whatever venomous pronouncements spewed out by none other than the demented president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte went as far as to exclaim that he himself would shoot a captured woman Red fighter in the genitals. This utter depravity virtually gives license to all AFP/PNP and paramilitary forces to rape and do despicable acts of bestiality not only to captured NPA women but also to women civilians in general. In a related recent incident, in an act of sheer bestiality, elements of the 29th IB dismembered the genital and desecrated the dead body of an NPA Red fighter in Sitio Ansili, Brgy. Bangayan, Kitcharao, Agusan del Norte. Anyone, let alone a head of state, who gets a kick out of shooting people in the genitals is, at the very least, not in his right mind, and in utter disregard of human dignity.

In their knack for releasing fake news, the AFP even went as far as to make it appear that Rommel Salinas, an NDF consultant, was only recently captured, when in fact he was already in jail since May of 2017. In another fake story, they made it appear that a certain Leonida Guao, whom they christened with multiple made-up nom de guerres, was a suspected “finance officer of the Mindanao Commission.” The charges against her are obviously false because she has never been part of the said Commission, and, the designation “finance officer” is absolutely non-existent in the same; and, in fact, she is an ordinary civilian.

We condemn these blackest of propaganda, set-up, orchestrations and the proliferation of fake & poison news as well as the vilification levelled against the New People’s Army and the revolutionary movement in general. The AFP waxes nostalgic and harks back to the 1950s, when the reactionary government under the Magsaysay regime, directed by the CIA, employed brutal counterinsurgency tactics against the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB). The US-Duterte regime thinks that such antiquated CIA ploys are a victory clincher for them today, but, that was an entirely different era for the revolutionary movement, which was then plagued by the ideological betrayal of the Lavas and Tarucs.

Fifty years after the re-establishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the Filipino people now know full well that the NPA will never commit these unspeakable acts the AFP accuses it of doing. This is because the NPA is steeled by its own code of discipline as embodied in its 3 Points of Discipline and 8 Points of Attention, which serves as its daily guideline in its every movement, especially when Red fighters and revolutionaries are among the masses.

The revolutionary movement has gone through two great rectification movements (one in 1968 and another in 1992) and continues to uphold Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its ideological guide. It is consistent in its respect for fundamental human rights and the international humanitarian law. Thus, to put the masses in harm’s way is completely antithetical to these principles.

The NDFP calls on the people to unite and expose and oppose these vile acts of psywar committed by the US- Duterte regime against the public and against the revolutionary movement.#